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No HDV Firewire control in FCP5.04
In the the View>Video Playback menu, there is no option for HDV Firewire playback.
Only Apple Firewire. I have an HDV Deck hooked up to the FCP 5.04 system, but playback only goes out as SD DV. If I force the deck (M25U) into HDV Select Mode, and refresh A/V devices, the HDV playback option appears in the menu but it is greyed out and cannot be selected.So how do I get FCP to use the HDV (1440×1080) 30fps fireswire settings?
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9 Replies
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You still need a capture capable of HDV playback. Apple sort of misleads everyone on this topic. FCP (by itself) doesn’t playback HDV except in the Canvas and Viewer windows or using the Desktop Preview. To view it properly, you’ll need a capture card like the Blackmagic series or the AJA Kona series of capture cards.
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How can that be?
It goes in and out the firewire cable, right?
The Blackmagic card doesn’t have a firewire port does it?
So why would I need the card? Even the data rate is supposed to be the same as DV.
There’s going to be some yelling around here if what your saying is true. -
HDV and DV are two totally different creatures. HDV is a transport stream of data, not a standard video stream. So that means, if you capture HDV to your system and wish to play it back using FCP without a hardware card, it will have to extremely quickly build that frame of video (decode it) so fast that you would have to have a serious super computer to do just that.
A hardware card has built-in hardware codecs to do just that, the same as the machine. I know you’re probably steaming right now because someone didn’t tell you this on the front end, I’m sure. But HDV is a data format and the computer will have to have some serious processing power to decode and export to firewire at the same time. That’s where the capture come in. AJA and Blackmagic have built-in support for HDV playback. I have an AJA Kona 2 card and if I want to edit in HDV, I have to select an Easy Setup for HDV playback in order to view HDV in realtime. Yeah, I know… it kinda bites!
Most everyone here who uses HDV captures to DVCPRO HD or Uncompressed HD and then works with that to get around the HDV thing. When you do this, life gets so much easier.
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Do you have any reference for your notion that a capture card is needed?
The Apple FCP site says you can “capture and record” directly from your camera or deck using Firewire – exactly as you would capture DV.
There is no mention of a Video card needed.
Other people on this site have mentioned capturing and editing HDV directly through firewire and have not mentioned a video card.
I’ve a pretty good feeling you’re wrong about this.
I certainly don’t beleive that a computer can’t playback mpeg2 video, even the slowest computers these days can play a DVD, so why would FCP need enourmous computing power to do basically the same thing?
Oh, well, thanks for you comments, when I finally get a HDV tape in the deck, I’ll know for sure.
Just can’t quite believe Apple would be that deceptive – Sony maybe, but not apple. -
[dndobson] “The Apple FCP site says you can “capture and record” directly from your camera or deck using Firewire – exactly as you would capture DV.”
Yes, “Capture and Record” to/from an HDV deck. NOT realtime playback to video / audio monitoring.
To do realtime video / audio monitoring you will require a card such as the AJA Kona series.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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He’s right as you can see I just put up a post as I’m working with HDV and run into the same problem it makes sense when you think about it. Why do you think when you go to true HD a Card is your best friend.
But another question is how come I get an error mesage when I try to capture in DVC Pro HD telling me it doesn’t detect that device? Is it as simple as changing my Audio/Video setup from HDV to HD?
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[GEMPIC] “But another question is how come I get an error mesage when I try to capture in DVC Pro HD telling me it doesn’t detect that device? Is it as simple as changing my Audio/Video setup from HDV to HD?”
From an HDV deck? No you can’t do that as far as I know. FCP itself cannot convert an HDV signal to DVCPro HD via Firewire. Again, you need a card like the AJA Kona series to do this conversion.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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Wayne Carney says in his second reply,”Most everyone here who uses HDV captures to DVCPRO HD or Uncompressed HD and then works with that to get around the HDV thing. When you do this, life gets so much easier”.
Refering to from what I understand you capture settings. -
[GEMPIC] “Wayne Carney says in his second reply,”Most everyone here who uses HDV captures to DVCPRO HD or Uncompressed HD and then works with that to get around the HDV thing. When you do this, life gets so much easier”.
Refering to from what I understand you capture settings.”Wayne is absolutely correct. And he is using a card such as the AJA Kona card. FCP does not do this natively via Firewire. You must use a third party card that can do the conversion for you.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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